The present invention relates to an elevator with accessory hall devices that include up/down elevator buttons and a position indicator provided in an elevator hall of each of building floors.
In an conventional elevator, up/down buttons and a position indicator, attached in each of the elevator halls and indicative of the position and moving direction of the cage, receive electric power from an elevator machine room directly via power feeding lines. A method of feeding electric power from each floor to the cage was proposed as a contact type power feeding method disclosed in JP-A-49-42036. A non-contact type power feeding method is proposed, for example, in JP-A-5-294568 and 57-121568.
With the above mentioned conventional techniques, electric power is supplied directly via the feeding lines to the up/down buttons and the position indicator installed in each elevator hall from the elevator machine chamber. Thus, a voltage drop across the feeding lines increases as the building in which the elevator is installed becomes higher. Thus, as the length of feeding lines increases, its diameter must be increased, which would lead to an increase in costs.
When connections are made from the feeding lines to the respective up/down elevator buttons and indicators, the number of contacts concerned increases as the building where the elevator is installed becomes higher. Thus, wrong connections are liable to occur and maintenance/management is very difficult. Of course, there is a problem concerning a rather limited construction term for wiring work to be done at the site.
The present invention is made in view of those problems in the prior art. It is an object of the present invention to provide an elevator capable of supplying electric power to accessory hall devices provided in a hall of each of the floors for the elevator without the necessity for providing feeding lines between the cage and the hall.
In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, there is provided an elevator comprising: a cage for moving up and down though a shaft; a plurality of groups of accessory hall devices each group provided near the elevator in an elevator hall formed on a respective one of floors of a building; a plurality of drive batteries each provided in a respective one of the halls for providing electric power to the plurality of groups of accessory hall devices provided in the hall; a charging device provided on the cage for charging each of the plurality of drive batteries.
In such arrangement of the present invention, electric power is supplied in a contact or non-contact manner from the charging device mounted on the cage to the drive battery provided in the respective hall. The battery supplies power to the hall devices that include the up/down elevator buttons and indicator. Thus, electric power is supplied to the hall devices without the necessity for providing feeding lines especially between the cage and each hall. The electric power supplied by the charging device is a part of power supplied from the tail cord for cage illumination and door motor driving. Electric power consumed by the hall devices that include the up/down elevator buttons and indicators is very small compared to the power consumed for the cage illumination and door motor driving. Thus, the diameter of the tail cord does not increase greatly.